


Volosy

by rpshoodini



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, I ship our small kitten with no one i swear, Lotsa Victor and yuri bonding, Post-Episode 10, Salty yurio as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8805670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rpshoodini/pseuds/rpshoodini
Summary: When his hands started shaking as they cupped around Yuri's chin, it wasn't only due to an amount of apparent anger targeted towards the Russian Punk. It was, instead, a glorious mix of accumulated melancholy, dissatisfication, and self-doubt he had so ironically sought for the past few years in GPF stage. Maybe Yuri's frequent explosions are that sort of things, too.aka Victor apologizes to Yuri for snapping. Awkward times ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yuri P. = Yuri/Yurio  
> Yuri K. = Yuuri
> 
> Just in case.

When his hands started shaking as they cupped around Yuri's chin, it wasn't only due to an amount of apparent anger targeted towards the Russian Punk. It was, instead, a glorious mix of accumulated melancholy, dissatisfication, and self-doubt he had so ironically sought for the past few years in GPF stage. And perhaps something that strangely looks like one of Yuuri's usual embarrased smile he was desperately eager to protect, flickering deep down in a complicted labyrinth called the soul of Victor Nikiforov. Said imagery toned down his temper somehow; however the hot, trembling fury didn't stop.

"Let me go," Yuri grunted, and Victor obeyed. The younger skater took some steps back, but not his words. After a single moment that seemed like eternity, he added, "the ocean. It looks like one in Hasetsu."

"Yes, it does." Their exchange simply hanged there, unresolved. Victor could easily relate to it, he felt that way too many times--like attempting a jump with too many flips that he had never yet to land, leaving him in a state where he stopped midway holding on nothing but thin air. When he thought of Hastesu, his mind wandered to Yuuri. But when he thought of Yuuri, some parts of him also flashed out images of himself standing with stone-cold eyes and porcelain smile, his fifth-in-a-row gold medal dangling around his neck much like a leash. For the past eight months, he had been working his best on decaying that image away.

Victor stretched out his hand and let Barcelona's warm sunlight glittered up the new golden ring encircling his finger. There is a chance that his previous snapping to Yuri was a way for him to channel out disappointment of himself, of the whole world. Maybe Yuri's frequent explosions are that sort of things, too. Seriously, being on ice is perhaps the best for skaters like them, such emotional beings should be put in the right place where they can express emotions properly.

Victor called Yuri an exact beat before his back was too far for his voice to reach. "Do you like it?"

Yuri paused at his tracks right away, just as he planned, then Victor realized he had never walked away in the first place. When he glanced back, his confusion was genuine. "What?"

"Do you like Hasetsu," the silver-haired man hummed, "and skating. _And me?_ "

"Why the sudden question? More importantly, why are you putting them all together?" Yuri curiously, but warily, squinted his eyes. He contemplated for a while before he admitted, "despite how I treat the world that doesn't mean I particularly despise everything, you know. Not saying I like them, either."

"That applies to me as well?"

"You're an exception. Remember that I still haven't forgiven you, asshole."

Victor chuckled. "Isn't that very like you," he turned and faced his junior. Arguments before a big competition are good for neither a competitor nor a coach. He wasn't going to risk it, even if that means putting on the happy-go-lucky facadé once again in front of a bastard as tiny as the blonde teenager, whom by all means didn't deserve such luxury. "You know what, we're going out eating. Just the two of us," Yuri raised an eyebrow. "And you won't decline. But first of all, young man, we need to set up a few rules."

***

"You can't force me into these silliness, Victor," Yuri begrudgingly said, "you're not my coach. You can say we're now strangers, _rivals_ even."

Victor responded with a dismissive nod, his focus stranded somewhere too busy talking with a waitress. "Uh-huh. Is that another request or a beg I'm hearing?"

"Neither!"

"Adorable," he handed the menu to his companion for meal and winked, "now pick the food. It's my treat." Yuri seemingly swallowed up his complaints in the face of various Spanish street snacks. This guy is amazingly cheap sometimes, to the point the fact that he was only fifteen sort of hit Victor like an over-confident idiot during his first time on ice attempting to do quad jumps.

They found the location not too far away from the official hotel, a small 24-hours kind of snack shop which probably served as emergency last-second-stop to those who are miserable enough to get hungry at 4 in the morning without the ability to make anything edible to keep themselves alive. Definitely not a place people expected two world-renowned Russian skaters to be just hours before Grand Prix Final, but all things aside here they were, sitting on opposite sides of a small table they had occupied.

In reality this wasn't exactly the first time Victor dragged Yuri out for a bite. During their times as rinkmates, which means Yuri's rookie days under Yakov's supervision, Victor would take him out after practice every once in a while, when he wasn't busy attending tournaments. At rare times Mila tagged along, but mostly it was just the two of them, which usually ended up with Yuri pointing out every flaw in Yakov he deemed necessary to say in-between of curses or bites--while Victor continued munching, nodding, throwing comments here and there.

Yuri couldn't say he considered Victor as a friend, and he could say Victor felt the same as well; surely the 12 years gap was just too obvious to miss. In the first place their personalities didn't even matched. Nevertheless, the word 'rinkmates' sounds to work just fine, because once you're on ice, your skill determines who you are rather than the poor concept of age, thus as long as both held the same belief their feelings stayed mutual. As years passed, Yuri would busy himself with junior championships while Victor morphed into a legendary figure in the ice-skating world.

On one sunny day, Victor flew to Hasetsu and the sun suddenly exploded, burning everything on its path including JJ's and Yuuri's ass because Yuri Plisetsky's rage was fierce enough to gain him the power of the sun. That last part was a lie, though.

"I want this," Yuri pointed at something from the menu that looked like some sort of soup--it might be a fascinating local cuisine Victor would love to put on his Instagram feed later, but in the moment that isn't the whole point of their rushed small feast.

Victor peeked in. "A soup? Are you sure?" he repeated, then shrugged. "If you're alright eating that before your program, I guess. What are you waiting for, order away."

The food came in a few minutes later, appearing completely different to its first-class, gorgeous counterpart on the photo inside menu book. Both skaters couldn't help but arched their eyebrows a little and exchanged suspicious glances, but otherwise the soup still proved to taste rather exquisite when Yuri tried a sip. As soon as the hot liquid touched his tounge, it bit him with strong spices, and perhaps, a tint of lemon. He immediately got an idea of what to put in his pirohzkis next.

"We really shouldn't be here right now, idiot," Yuri mumbled in an annoyed tone as he ate, "my coach must be looking for me. And that loser must be losing his mind looking for you, too. Not that I care, but I feel kinda sorry for him having to keep up with your antics."

But there Yuri was, gulping sips of a soup bought with Viktor's fucking cash as if he had no care in the world. This hypocrite. Victor snorted without bothering to hide it. "Thought you never cared about what Yakov says anyway. Why start caring now?"

The blond mumbled something nearly inaudible in return.

"Sorry?"

"...my _other_ coach."

A moment of silence followed as Victor put the puzzle together, and in the next second he burst into laughs. "Oh my God, why hadn't I--pfft--see it sooner," the five-times-world-champion clenched his stomach, tears started to form in his eyes from laughing too much. Meanwhile Yuri's grip on his spoon dangerously tighten with every drop of patience seeping out of him. "Needless to say the first time I saw Lilia she scared the Hell out of me--"

"Victor, I swear I'm planning out a murder for you and I will make it look like an accident."

"--but she is an amazing coach, isn't she? Your performance greatly improved in a pretty short span of period." The older skater shot him a soft smile, "you're very lucky to have her, Yurio."

That made Yuri unsure of what to respond with. "I... guess," he managed out at last, but then looked up glaring. " _Still_ doesn't mean it is acceptable for a certain _someone_ to accidentally forgot his promise and become a fool."

Victor, clearly tired of all these endless arguments, puffed out as much air as he could before his blue orbs stared right into Yuri's green ones. He was engulfed in blind anger no longer, but the stance he was using isn't particularly soft either. This character resembled more of his persona whenever Victor was but a whirwind of grace on his sharp blades, a sight astonishing to behold but at the same time as delicate as the thin ice underneath. Yuri didn't look away in the slightest, however Victor would be more surprised if he did.

"Yurachka," he started, and it admittedly sent the teenager off a bit when Victor used the fond name he used to call him with instead of the one he earned in Hasetsu. Yuri tried not to flinch. "I need you to understand, although I know it is hard. I've been spending the last years asking myself of my own motivation to stride on ice. The more I kissed the medals, the more my lips grew frozen from my own passion. Don't you think it's scary how I'm beginning to _despise_ skating, which I so desperately love?"

"And?"

"I found my love back once I retire from tainted-black ice."

Yuri didn't cut off their eye contact. "There you are again using love as an excuse. You're not fooling anyone, you know. We both know where this so-called 'love' blossomed from!"

Victor pursued his lips, sometimes he hated his delinquent junior for being too mature at perfect timing. To be honest, Victor had always been the more illogical side between the two of them. It got be harder to to take Yuri as a child, if only he wasn't such a big fan of exploding every now-and-then. "Yes, Yurachka, that's true. I find my love again in a dazzling, talented skater named Katsuki Yuuri. Do you have any problem regarding that fact?"

"See?! It's always about that pig--!" a short sharp glare from his senior was enough to shut him up, he momentarily choked. "--right, rule number one: no trash talking about Yuuri. Sorry. But oh my God fuck those rules, Victor, aren't you ashamed for being such a weak victim to something as stupid as _love?!_ "

Victor cooly hissed. "I see it's too early for you to understand the whole meaning of love, but I don't see why love is idiotic. You can only be passionate with the existence of love, otherwise you're nothing but a washed-out skater, Yuri Plisetsky."

"You've spent years molding yourself into a recognized living legend without these bullshit about love before!"

"Then it was _nothing_ but an empty shell of me that you've seen."

Yuri jumped on his chair this time, the now-cold soup entirely forgotten. From under his light-colored bangs hiding them, his eyes grew wide. "Is it?" he mumbled, his voice wasn't trembling but neither did it hold any emotions. "Is the figure skater Victor Nikiforov that many people had so dearly loved and looked up to, was nothing but this love-struck coward?!"

"First of all, he isn't a love-struck coward."

"Then _who_ are you?"

"I--" Victor paused mid-sentence when he saw Yuri visibly distanced himself from him, as if trying to get away from the horrible reality standing upon him in a ridiculously childish attempt, except it wasn't a very laughable matter. Victor felt like he was the source Yuri's horrible reality and felt kind of guilty. He sighed and let tensions loose from their shoulders. "Hey Yura, don't tire yourself before the program."

The blonde teen snorted in reply, leaving them in silence. Victor knew they had always been different. While Yuri was born of sweat, tears, and blood (he meant it in a literal sense, you'd never knew how violent figure skating could be); Victor considered himself an artist building up on passion and desires. _Some people stick to quadruple salchows as if they're going to die out of self-dissatisfication without them; but some really just hold on to them for the medals and the money prizes,_ Yakov told a younger version of himself which felt like centuries ago, and at that time he quickly thought of a workaholic father fishing money out of a job he actually hates with all his might. Later on he thought of Yuri whenever he recalled the statement, but it was only up until a christmas night two years ago when he took the unwilling boy to a public ice rink and watched as Yuri's emotions laid bare on freezing layers.

"Take a break, Yura. You've gotten a good start, I see you've made a new friend within Otabek Altin," Victor cheered, and for a second he could've mistaken the flush on Yuri's cheeks as a sign of embarrasment. "The news is spreading everywhere. I wonder what you two actually did?"

"Oh, nothing much," the younger man shrugged, "had a nice little chat. Some trash-talking about JJ--"

"Great going!"

"--and about you, too."

Victor's mouth opened, then closed in consideration. "Oh. That is also great."

Yuri had no intentions to keep their conversation going, it seems, because the next thing he did was picking his spoon back up and began to finish the rest of his abandoned soup. Maybe he really did plan to quickly flee from the shop and back to where Yakov was likely ready with a train of scolding, away, away from Victor so he could resume resenting him for his entire career. Victor watched the teen in equal silence and noticed that some of his bangs were horrendously close to getting inside the bowl.

His hands moved almost on their own, pulling the silky strands back and slipped them behind Yuri's ears. The boy scowled, but made no movement to fight the gesture. "It has gotten longer compared to the first time I met you," he off-handedly commented, twirling strands with color just a few shades darker than his own between playful fingers. He had it much longer when he was Yuri's age. "Are you keeping this because of me?"

Yuri snapped. "You wish!"

"Haha, alright. No plans to cut them soon?"

"I like it this way."

Victor hummed and recalled how it felt to have warm extra weight on his shoulders. It was pleasant. "But you should cut it later, when people start understimating your skill based on your appearance." Then, on a second thought, he added, "this is more than a mere positivity advice, this is from someone who had undergone the experience, okay?"

"Victor," the blonde teen replied impatiently, "I'm not you. And would never be, because I'm a better person. So stop telling me to do things like you did."

They stayed in their respective poses for a second too long. At last, Victor closed his eyes in settlement, pulled out some bills from his coat, stood up, and faced Yuri one more time without a hint of expression showing from behind the cracks. "I'm going to take my leave. Are we good now, Yurio?"

Yuri shook his head without any hesitation. "Nope."

"I know, " hence Victor smiled. Not that he expected anything else. He had known the answer long before even he proposed the question. On the other hand, what surprised him was the question that soon followed from Yuri just when he thought they had reached the end of their nice little chat.

"Victor, how do my eyes look like?"

The older skater raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Just... curious."

The figure skating legend threw a hum of approval. "Like the eyes of a..." what he saw often in Yuri's orbs was determination. Raw willpower, sometimes fueled by hatred, which recently was targeted multiple times towards Victor himself. Varying emotions, because unlike Victor, Yuri love and hate and skate with his heart on his sleeves, and splendid skills right in his stash. He chuckled. "...a silver medalist!" Then he ran before Yuri's rage could catch up with him.

Nobody could deny Yuri's exceptional abilities. Yuri would go high places, Victor was sure of that. But for now, his mind endlessly kept on orbiting a powerful terrestrial object called Yuuri Katsuki, whose gravity pulling him in since forever. For now, he made sure he would get his first gold medal-- _as a coach_ \--wrapped up within Yuuri's bright smile. And he knew he would make it happen, because Victor Nikiforov is Victor Nikiforov and he is known to work magic.

Victor strolled, delighted, and suddenly getting Yuuri and Yurio matching sweaters for Christmas didn't sound that bad of an idea. He doubted Yuri would accept it though. It would be quite a long time until he would be willing to speak to Victor again without suffering any temper tantrums.

 _Too bad,_ Victor thought to himself, brushing his remorse off, _I like that kid._

**Author's Note:**

> My finals are over and I'm celebrating it with a new fic! (To hell with my results) I blame this on my curiosity of what is actually happening between Yuri and Victor. I mean wtf sometimes Kitten's really nice but the next second he is so salty he is giving me high blood pressure. Even though we had gotten an episode from Victor's pov he is still such a mystery ugh.
> 
> Two episodes to go and I wish we'll get the answers soon! Meanwhile, please read, review, and give kudos! :) sorry for any typos/grammar mistakes btw


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